Pita Place announces winter hours and delivery

by Cheyenne Corty ·
Published October 10, 2017
· Updated January 29, 2018

The air inside of Pita Place fills with the smells of fresh vegetables, pita pockets, and falafel spheres coated in tahini and hummus. Employees work behind the counter, prepping each pita falafel as customers leave within minutes ready to devour their orders. The building sports a “new hours” sign out front, as well as instructions to now enter the location to order—as opposed to the usual summer ordering system of a counter from outside.

Pita Place has been a staple in Fairbanks for eleven summers.

“Two years at the Farmer’s Market, four or five years with a trailer, and then five years ago we started with the building,” Navad Weiss, the owner of Pita Place explains. Winter hours are now Monday through Friday from eleven to three, and Pita Place now has indoor seating available as well.

“We want to try it,” said Weiss. “We’ve been in UAF in the past a little bit, but we never tried really to do our own thing, so we want to try it to see how it works.”

The indoor seating and winter hours were not a new idea that Weiss had for his restaurant.

“When I designed the building, I had in mind that I wanted an option to have a little bit public indoor,” Weiss said. “Even though it’s not the focus of the business, so I knew that it might happen one day.”

The serving stations are now off to the side and further back than they were before, allowing for the location to have a small seating area with stools, and several tables for customer convenience.

In regards to the popularity of Pita Place and the food it serves Weiss attributed success to their recipe.

“It’s all as simple as it can be,” he said nothing added, no artificial flavors, or additives…it is what it is and I think that’s what people like. You see what it is and that’s it.”

Continuing with food quality Weiss said, ” It’s all vegan, it is not that we adjusted things to be vegan, that’s just this kind of food. It took me a couple of years to realize that it’s vegan, because we didn’t need to make it vegan.”

Weiss acknowledges location as being a factor of popularity as well for Pita Place,

“It’s been really nice, the proximity to UAF, to see and get to know some of the students and faculty members,” Weiss said.

A new delivery option is also available for Pita Place. Customers can now go online to order.

“We paired up with AK Speedy Eats, and they deliver definitely to UAF, and all around town. It costs five dollars for delivery, and it doesn’t matter how big the order is” Weiss explains. “And our website, https://www.pitaplacedelivery.com/, has a really simple interface, at least for me. Just click what you want, and what you don’t want, it’s really just like you’re here, it’s very streamlined and comfortable ordering.”

Weiss also suggested using the website to order, and picking up in the store, which has no additional cost to the order.

Pita Place has only been available in the winter a small number of times, with two full years on the UAF campus. This winter will be the first winter where Pita Place has remained open without needing to move to another location.